Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought,

Never from lips of cunning, fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle;
Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,-
The canticles of love and woe;
The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian
Rome,

Wrought in a sad sincerity;

Of honor o'er the sea,

And bid the broad Atlantic roll A ferry of the free.

And, henceforth, there shall be no chain,

Save underneath the sea

He builded better than he knew; The conscious stone to beauty grew.

main

Sweet songs of Liberty.

The conscious stars accord above,
The waters wild below,

And under, through the cable wove,
Her fiery errands go.

Painting with morn each annual cell!
Or how the sacred pine-tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads ?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon.
As the best gem upon her zone;

And morning opes with haste her lids,
To gaze upon the Pyramids;
O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,
As on its friends, with kindred eye;
For out of thought's interior sphere,
These wonders rose to upper air;
And nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat.

These temples grew as grows the

grass;

Art might obey, but not surpass.
The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o'er him
planned;

And the same power that reared the shrine

Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. Ever the fiery Pentecost

Girds with one flame the countless host,

Trances the heart through chanting choirs,

And through the priest the mind inspires.

The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told,
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.
I know what say the fathers wise,―
The Book itself before me lies,
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden Lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.
His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowlèd portrait dear;
And yet, for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.

THE RHODORA.

IN May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,

Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,

To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

The purple petals, fallen in the pool, Made the black water with their beauty gay;

Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,

And court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

Dear, tell them, that if eyes were Then beauty is its own excuse for made for seeing, being:

Why thou wert there, oh, rival of the

rose!

I never thought to ask, I never knew: But in my simple ignorance, suppose The selfsame power that brought me there, brought you.

THE HUMBLE-BEE.
BURLY, dozing humble-bee,
Where thou art is clime for me,
Let them sail for Porto Rique,
Far-off heats through seas to seek;
I will follow thee alone,
Thou animated torrid-zone!
Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,
Let me chase thy waving lines:
Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,
Singing over shrubs and vines.

Insect lover of the sun,
Joy of thy dominion!
Sailor of the atmosphere;
Swimmer through the waves of air;
Voyager of light and noon;
Epicurean of June;
Wait, I prithee, till I come
Within earshot of thy hum,—
All without is martyrdom.

When the south-wind, in May days,
With a net of shining haze
Silvers the horizon wall,
And, with softness touching all,

THE RIGHT MUST WIN.

OH, it is hard to work for God,
To rise and take his part
Upon this battle-field of earth,
And not sometimes lose heart!

He hides himself so wondrously,
As though there were no God;
He is least seen when all the powers
Of ill are most abroad.

HARSH JUDGMENTS.

O GOD! whose thoughts are brightest light,

Whose love runs always clear, To whose kind wisdom, sinning souls, Amid their sins, are dear,

Sweeten my bitter-thoughted heart
With charity like thine,

Till self shall be the only spot
On earth that does not shine.

Hard-heartedness dwells not with souls

Round whom thine arms are drawn; And dark thoughts fade away in grace,

Like cloud-spots in the dawn.
Time was when I believed that wrong
In others to detect
Was part of genius, and a gift
To cherish, not reject.

Now, better taught by thee, O Lord!
This truth dawns on my mind,
The best effect of heavenly light
Is earth's false eyes to blind.

He whom no praise can reach is aye
Men's least attempts approving;
Whom justice makes all-merciful,
Omniscience makes all-loving.

When we ourselves least kindly are,
We deem the world unkind:
Dark hearts, in flowers where honey
lies,

Only the poison find.

How Thou canst think so well of us,
Yet be the God Thou art,
Is darkness to my intellect,

But sunshine to my heart.

Yet habits linger in the soul;

More grace, O Lord! more grace; More sweetness from thy loving heart, More sunshine from thy face!